“You are resisting the natural mechanism of psychological defense.”
“I know. And that makes it even harder.”
“Do you want to feel control in this at least? Control over your hatred, disgust, over your feelings?”
Wilhelmina thought, her gray-blue eyes clouded slightly, her long eyelashes fluttered.
“Yes,” she answered shortly.
“What else will allow you to regain the control you have lost? For some people, it is enough to control the food on their plate, their daily routine, their expenses—”
“I’m not ‘some people,’” Miss Gustavsson sighed resignedly. “Not because I put myself above – or below … I just—”
She picked up words like puzzle pieces, like shards in a stained-glass mosaic, carefully stepping on crumbs of broken porcelain that dug into her bare heels, leaving bloody blots on the floor. She had long since stopped filtering the thoughts she expressed at her psychotherapist’s appointment; she was not afraid of Dr. Gasztold – judgement, reactions of rejection, condolence … Dr. Gasztold was cold and impartial, a real surgeon.
Surgeons have to take a detached view of the situation, to hurt people – so that they can recover later.
“Have you ever thought about having an affair?”
The gray-blue eyes blinked, and the gaze moved from the statuette – a noble deer by a 19th-century French sculptor – to the man in the chair opposite.
“Why?”
Wilhelmina, out of habit, had already managed to capture the first thought that came into her head, caught it like a cat catches a mouse by the tail with its claw, had already managed to analyze its meaning.
At first, she didn’t think about the rationality and point … Before her eyes, bright as a camera flash, there appeared, as if from nowhere, an image with a shock of chestnut hair and freckles on a young face.
“You need to distract yourself. The way you hide the affair will allow you to feel the power and sweetness of the secret you did not allow yourself.”
“It’s physically impossible,” Wilhelmina answered, perfectly understanding that Dr. Gasztold had already drawn conclusions: that instead of denying, she had switched to logic, hid behind rationalization, and had not refused. “Phoebus knows everything, I don’t have a minute when he’s not present in my life, either explicitly or implicitly.”
“Everything is possible – if you want it. Think about it, just think, don’t drive this thought away.”
Wilhelmina didn’t drive … She was thinking.
“Tell me about a person you might like.”
“Dr. Gasztold, I wouldn’t like to discuss this now, it’s more important to me—”
Who is she trying to deceive! She came to the session with a specific request that had nothing to do with her real problem! She slips away, hides, condemning her own escapism …
Phoebus had begun to irritate her much more recently, Wilhelmina simply could not stand the scent of his perfume, his body odor, and the gag reflex, seemingly lost forever, was again raising its head and trying to rise from its knees … She wanted Dr. Gasztold to give her practical advice, some kind of auto-training technique for accepting the situation, but in the end she came to what she was trying to escape from.
Phoebus became disgusting to her because suddenly someone else became nice. Before, no matter how much de Lavender shoved his cock into Wilhelmina’s mouth, no matter how much he kneaded her breasts and ass with his hands, no matter how much he grabbed her hair, carefully, afraid of ruining her hairdo, Wilhelmina didn’t care.
She sincerely thought she had died long ago, all that was left of her was a shell, a walking dead, not even a dead bride, in the guise of a doll on joints … It turned out that her heart could beat unevenly, out of rhythm, not according to a memorized script.
She instantly forgot the lines of the role, she became confused and began to fall into the abyss, she was afraid that the prompter had disappeared – and would no longer tell her what to do.
She had been enslaved for too long, she should have forgotten about any possibility of escape! She felt herself stupid and weak, she was afraid to even think about habitual way of life changing.
Dr. Gasztold suggested imagining something pleasant during moments of intimacy with de Lavender; Wilhelmina put on a mask of indifference, simply not knowing what she would find pleasant.
The warm azure ocean, hot white sand, snowflakes tingling on her face, the fresh wind of a ski resort, the taste – and sensation – in her mouth of slightly stale, yesterday’s bread made from coarse flour … And sometimes she imagined that Phoebus was dead, that suddenly there was no longer a tormentor, a warden, a caring owner holding a leash with a gold chain, a calfskin collar no longer digging into her neck.
“You yourself understand that this is only internal resistance. Okay, Wilhelmina, we’ll talk about this when you’re ready.”
“He has warm hands and a kind smile,” Wilhelmina said suddenly. “He has tousled hair, ordinary, very ordinary, slightly worn clothes, he smells like cheap shower gel.”
“Go on.”
“He looks like …” she exhaled, almost giggling, “a pine marten. He has sharp teeth and claws, a strong, agile body, a fluffy tail.”
Wilhelmina fell silent, her thin-fingered hands released the armrests of the chair and lay on her knees in wide suit pants with perfectly defined creases.
“What do you feel when you are with him?”
‘Feel’ – not ‘will feel.’ Probably some technique of Dr. Gasztold to immerse oneself in a certain state.
“I can be myself, I feel myself, I am calm.”
She looked at the doctor, he nodded.
“That’s great, Wilhelmina. You know who to look for. And you know what to do, too.”
It was out of the realm of fantasy to even imagine that there would be someone in her life, other than Phoebus. Someone who would touch her, who would look into her eyes, who would whisper nonsense in her ear, whose laughter would ring like a bell … Someone whom Wilhelmina would want to touch herself. Unthinkable!
Dr. Gasztold knew what he was talking about, Wilhelmina believed him – but in her situation, such a way of ‘distracting herself’ looked like suicide.
Sometimes Wilhelmina thought that therapy was not helping her, sometimes she looked back and saw positive changes, her growth and progress … Even when she only attended support sessions with a regular story about the last days, monotonous to the point of toothache, the psychiatrist’s office was the only place where she could speak openly, call things by their proper names.
Phoebus de Lavender bought her, raised her from childhood, like a pig for slaughter, forced her into sex when Wilhelmina was eighteen, fucked her like a doll all the following years, albeit rarely – because of his low libido – carried her around with him everywhere like an expensive, luxurious thing. Phoebus de Lavender was stern, but explained his sternness by care and love, he never raised his hand to Wilhelmina and did not even raise his voice. He spoke calmly, but imperiously, not forgetting to remind her from time to time where he took Wilhelmina from, what shit he washed her from, and how he sometimes wanted to take her back to a brothel in Latin America, where rich men looking for exotic pleasures can easily buy a blonde Swedish girl of eleven.
It is also possible to buy permanently. Phoebus de Lavender gave five hundred thousand dollars for Wilhelmina, adopted her as a distant relative, and as a share